From spending time and money searching for quality ingredients to learning how to prepare nutritious meals, maintaining a healthful diet is a big commitment.

Nowadays, even the busiest person can stay on track with the help of grocery and meal delivery services.

“I have kids that are into a lot of extracurricular activities and my husband's a doctor with a crazy schedule,” said Abby Tolin. “I would try to figure out what in the world to cook for dinner while I was driving around in my car.”

When local chef Tim McDiarmid, who runs the catering business Tim the Girl, added a meal delivery program to her list of services in September, Tolin signed up.

“I love the convenience of it, but the quality of food is different than you get just anywhere,” Tolin said. “You can tell when you taste everything that it's really fresh.”

McDiarmid sends out a weekly menu, accepting 10 orders per week. She says it usually takes three days to find the best ingredients from local farmers and at farmers markets, create the menu and prepare the food.

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“I do what people wish they had time to do,” she said. “It started with a few families, and now sometimes I have to turn people away.”

Some other local meal delivery services include We Both Love Soup, which offers two homemade soups per week, at least one of which is vegetarian; and Raw Juice & Lunch Delivered, which offers either a raw vegan lunch with a fresh squeezed vegetable juice or juice in quantity for people on fasts or cleanses.

“People who are developing these businesses are interested in making their work go with their lifestyle,” said Heather Wenrich, who started Raw Juice & Lunch Delivered earlier this year.

Call or email with your regular grocery list and have it delivered to your door the next day.

Price: Grocery store prices per item, plus a $20 convenience fee for orders totaling $199 or less; for orders more than $200, the convenience fee is 15 percent of the total (additional fuel charges may apply).

Two homemade soups delivered per week, at least one of which is vegetarian.

Price: One time delivery, $15 for a pint of each soup, $25 for a quart of each soup; bimonthly delivery, $28 for 2 pints twice a month, $48 for 2 quarts twice a month; weekly delivery, $52 for 2 pints four times a month, $88 for 2 quarts four times a month.

James Chapa and wife Veronica, a vegan chef, created Veggytopia in the summer of 2011. They operate out of a commercial kitchen in Kyle and deliver vegan meals to customers throughout Central Texas.

“Part of why we got into the business is because the vegan and vegetarian movement is growing,” Chapa said. “Folks are becoming more aware of the positive effects of a plant-based diet over time.

“My wife and I also have four kids and know how difficult it can be to put a good, fresh meal on the table.”

Veggytopia has between 50 and 100 customers in San Antonio, mostly in the central and northern parts of town, he said. The meals are made with organic, pesticide- and preservative-free ingredients. Chapa said earth-friendly practices are important to them; delivery routes are planned so that drivers (most of whom drive Priuses) can make many stops in one trip.

Environmentalism is also part of the reason Mason Arnold started Greenling, an Austin-based grocery delivery service with 3,000 customers in San Antonio.

“It started from my passion for sustainability and recognition that food is at the center of that,” Arnold said. “Health, culture ... so many things in society start around food, so we designed our business model around getting people healthier, fresher food than they could previously get.”

The most popular Greenling item is the Local Box — a collection of seasonal produce from local farms that is delivered on a weekly basis. Customers can also order customized boxes, meal kits and prepared foods.

“We match grocery store prices of organic food, but none of them have local food in the produce section,” he said. “We go around regularly and check.”

Both Chapa and Arnold say that their businesses grew more quickly than anticipated. Arnold, who expanded Greenling's services to the Dallas/Fort Worth area last year and Houston in February, attributes some of the success to people being more comfortable with online shopping.

Groceries2You, a San Antonio service that started earlier this year, is less about specific food and more about convenience. Customers give their grocery lists to the service and, for a fee, have the items delivered to their door.

Sonya Dawson, another Tim the Girl customer, says the element of surprise is one reason she prefers to subscribe to a meal delivery program.

“I like eating, but I hate cooking,” she said. “Sometimes when you get something from the store, you get the same thing every time. It's nice to have something different and surprising made for you.”

“What I try to guide people in is real food,” McDiarmid said. “Eat food with good, fresh ingredients. Be satisfied. This trend is picking up, and that's a great thing.”